What (Not?) To Wear

So I have a fashion dilemma, which is not unusual for me, given the paucity of my wardrobe, which I’ve already explained is the result of my impossibly high standards–or is it just my aversion to shopping? Let history judge me. For now, I am puzzling over a couple things:

1. Halloween

As you longtime readers know, I dislike Halloween. I don’t pretend to have religious objections to it, although I wish I could claim such high principles. Alas, it is nothing more complicated than me being an old fuddy-duddy who wouldn’t know a good time if it sat on her. I am what I am, kids. If only my husband could accept me this way, but no, he’s always trying to change me. He never doth learn.

Last year I made his holiday by dressing up for the first time in, I don’t know, eight years? Nine? If you missed that blogging event, I was Hester Prynne. It was a really good costume. Nobody got it, but that was okay. I was only trying to please my man, as they say. Anyway, I’m trying to decide this year if I want to dress up again, or if I’m going to go back to my old fuddy-duddy ways. The Hester Prynne costume is in storage at our Real House, and as I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t like going back there, and also, it’s highly probable that it is not in the garage anyway, but with all the other clothing they took out of our closet to be professionally cleaned. (Which is too bad, because if I’d just retained the smoke-enveloped thing, I could have gone as Goody Proctor being burned at the stake. Except I think they hanged Goody Proctor. Well, whatever. Like anyone would have gotten that either.) So I don’t know what I would dress up as anyway.

We pause for tangentially related marriage anecdote.

My husband bought himself a new Slipknot mask this year. It’s creepier than last year’s. He’s already abused the privilege of owning it. A few weeks ago we were retiring for the evening, and after brushing my teeth and/or powdering my nose or whatever it is we ladies do in our master bathrooms, I entered the master bedroom and started turning down the bed, when I happened to glance up and see this face peeking out from the bedroom curtains:

*

*Only without the fake eyeballs.

Naturally, I screamed like a horror movie bimbo, and just as naturally he laughed his freaking head off.

“Why did you do that?!?” I asked (with great forcefulness, as evidenced by the multiple punctuation marks). I may have thrown something at him, but I probably missed, as I was still shaking from the adrenaline rush.

“Because it was funny,” he said, still chuckling.

“No, it wasn’t. It was mean.”

“I thought you’d notice right away, but you just came out and went about your business, and I wanted to see what your reaction would be…” Blah blah blah, he just kept laughing.

Then, as we always pray together before going to bed, whether we feel like it or not, I said, “I’m going to pray that you stop being a jerk.”

“Then you’ll be praying for a long time,” he said.

No doubt.

Fuddy-duddy it is.

2. Thursday’s Nightwish concert

Not content with the surreality of his fuddy-duddy housewife appearing at a symphonic heavy metal concert, my husband would like me to dress the part of a “metal chick.” The problem is that I’m not sure I know what a “metal chick” would dress like. I’m not sure the husband does either. In my day “metal chicks” wore mullets and poorly applied eye makeup. I’d do a number of unsavory things for my husband–dressing up for Halloween being one of them–but I absolutely refuse to get a mullet. He says he’d be satisfied with fishnets and black lipstick. (But then what would I wear, honey? Ba-dum-bum!) That’s more goth than metal, but then, I suppose there’s probably such a thing as goth metal–I mean, why not?–but I have not been hip to most of these cultural trends, so what would I know? I may decide to go the ironic route and show up in a cardigan sweater and chinos. And a baseball cap. Soccer mom metal!

It’s hard to embarrass my husband, but I think that might actually do the trick.